College of Education, 521 Nanda Road, East Dist, Nanda Campus, National Tsing Hua University, 30013, Hsinchu City, Taiwan; Research Center for Education and Mind Sciences, 521 Nanda Road, East Dist, Nanda Campus, National Tsing Hua University, 30013, Hsinchu City, Taiwan; Department of Kinesiology, 521 Nanda Road, East Dist, Nanda Campus, National Tsing Hua University, 30013, Hsinchu City, Taiwan; Basic Psychology Group, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, 521 Nanda Road, East Dist, Nanda Campus, National Tsing Hua University, 30013, Hsinchu City, Taiwan.
Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018, WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, 1018, WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2024 Oct 10;203:108974. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108974. Epub 2024 Aug 23.
High-level expertise in team-sports is associated with superior performance on executive functions (EFs) such as working memory (WM) and action inhibition, and with altered activation of brain areas related to these EFs. In most such studies, athletes were sampled from the domain of dynamic (i.e., open-skill) team-sports (e.g., soccer players). Whether static (i.e., closed-skill) team-sports athletes (e.g., rowers and synchronized swimmers) also show superior EFs performance and differential EF-related functional brain activation remains unknown.
We recruited 14 elite closed-skill athletes, all national champions, and internationally competitive in various rowing disciplines, as well as 14 controls matched on gender, age, and education, and had them perform working memory and action inhibition (stop-signal) tasks during fMRI scanning.
Group differences in performance in either task failed to obtain statistical significance, although athletes showed a numerical trend toward higher WM capacity than controls. Importantly, task-related BOLD responses suggested that Olympic closed-skill team athletes show stronger recruitment of brain areas that emphasize relatively stable task demands and weaker engagement of brain areas that emphasize rapidly changing demands imposed by extraneous stimulation.
Functional brain imaging data suggest elite closed-skill athletes may employ different cognitive strategies.
高水平的团队运动专业知识与执行功能（EFs）的优异表现相关，例如工作记忆（WM）和动作抑制，以及与这些 EFs 相关的大脑区域的激活改变。在大多数此类研究中，运动员是从动态（即开放技能）团队运动领域（例如足球运动员）中抽取的。静态（即封闭技能）团队运动运动员（例如赛艇运动员和花样游泳运动员）是否也表现出优异的 EFs 表现和不同的 EF 相关功能大脑激活仍然未知。
我们招募了 14 名精英封闭技能运动员，他们都是全国冠军，在各种赛艇项目中都具有国际竞争力，以及 14 名在性别、年龄和教育方面相匹配的对照组，并让他们在 fMRI 扫描期间执行工作记忆和动作抑制（停止信号）任务。
尽管运动员在 WM 容量方面表现出高于对照组的数值趋势，但在任一项任务中的表现差异均未达到统计学意义。重要的是，与任务相关的 BOLD 反应表明，奥林匹克封闭技能团队运动员强调相对稳定任务需求的大脑区域的募集更强，而强调由外部刺激施加的快速变化需求的大脑区域的募集较弱。
功能脑成像数据表明，精英封闭技能运动员可能采用不同的认知策略。
